is very sad."

"And is this so very sad?" Richard asked, almost harshly.

The girl stared at him with parted lips.

"Oh yes!" she said slowly. "Of course,--don't you think so? It is
dreadfully sad."--And then, her attitude still unchanged and her pretty
plump hands still folded on her lap, she went on, in her touching
determination to sustain the conversation with due readiness and
civility. "Brockhurst is a much larger house than Whitney, isn't it? I
thought so the day we drove over to luncheon--when that beautiful,
French cousin of yours was staying with you, you remember?"

"Yes, I remember," Richard said.

And as he spoke Madame de Vallorbes, clothed in the seawaves, crowned
and shod with gold, seemed to stand for a moment beside his innocent,
little _fiancee_. How long it was since he had heard from her! Did she
want money, he wondered? It would be intolerable if, because of his
marriage, she never let him help her again. And all the while Lady
Constance's unemotional, careful, little voice continued, as did the
ceaseless murmur of London.

"I remember," she was saying, "because your cousin is quite the most
beautiful person I have ever seen. Papa admired her very much too. We
spoke of that as soon as Louisa had left us, when we were alone. But
there seemed to me so many staircases at Brockhurst, and rooms opening
one out of the other. I have been wondering--since--lately--whether I
shall ever be able to find my way about the house."

"I will show you your way," Dickie said gently, banishing the vision of
Helen de Vallorbes.

"You will show it me?" the girl asked, in evident surprise.

Then a companion picture to that of Madame de Vallorbes arose before
Dickie's mental vision--namely, the good-looking, long-legged, young,
Irish soldier, Mr. Decies, of the 101st Lancers, flying along the attic
passages of the Whitney bachelor's wing, in company with this
immediately--so--demure and dutiful maiden and all the rest of that
admittedly rather uproarious, holiday throng. Thereat a foolish lump
rose in poor Richard's throat, for he too was, after all, but young. He
choked the foolish lump down again. Yet it left his voice a trifle
husky.

"Yes, I will show you your way," he said. "I can manage that much, you
know, at home, in private, among my own people. Only you mustn't be in
a hurry. I have to take my time. You must not mind that. I--I go
slowly."

"But that will be much better for me," she answered, with